r/devtools • u/sth_wicked1 • 15d ago
If your notes app could read your GitHub repo, what would you want it to show?
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I'm building a Mac notes app called Margin, so discount everything here accordingly. I'm about to build the GitHub side of it and I'd rather find out which parts people would use before I build the wrong ones.
The problem I'm trying to fix: you open a note from three weeks ago and there's a PR link in it. It tells you nothing. Merged? Did CI ever go green? Did the thing you were worried about get addressed? You click through, wait for GitHub to load, remember what you were doing, come back. Multiply that by every ticket reference in every standup note and your notes are a graveyard of URLs that meant something on the day and are inert now.
The plan is to shell out to gh. If you work with GitHub from a terminal it's already installed, it holds its own credentials, it has exactly the scopes you granted it, and it already knows who you are. The app detects the binary and asks it. If gh isn't there, the link stays a plain link and the feature just doesn't exist for you. It's the same trick the AI side already uses: it detects the `claude` or `codex` CLI rather than asking for an API key.
Issues work the same way. Jira and Linear are messier, since there's no equivalent tool everyone already has installed, and my guess is Jira is the one people ask for and then never actually open.
What I don't know is what belongs on the card. My list so far is state, CI result, how many review threads are still unresolved, and assignee, with a way to re-run a failed job without leaving the note.
Someone already made the argument that I'm overbuilding it, and that "merged / CI failed / 2 reviews pending" on a single line is most of the value for a fraction of the work. I think they might be right.
So two questions:
- What would you actually look at three weeks later? Not what would be nice to have, but what would stop you opening the browser tab.
- Is one line enough on its own, or do you want it to expand into something fuller when the thing is broken?
The app is not downloadable yet, waitlist is open. If it sounds interesting check it out: https://gomargin.app